National Archives and Records Administration

JAPANESE PAPER BALLOON

Department of the Navy. Office of the Chief of Naval Operations. Naval Observatory. (1942 - 09/18/1947)

ARC Identifier 13084 / Local Identifier 80-MN-5083.

Made possible by donations from James Jacobs and Shawn Masters.


This movie is part of the collection: FedFlix

Producer: National Archives and Records Administration
Audio/Visual: sound, color
Language: English
Keywords: archives.gov; public.resource.org

Creative Commons license: Public Domain

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Reviewer: Jeff Tabor - - August 16, 2011
Subject: Japan's unrequited wrath...
The paper balloons Japan released to float to CONUS landed up and down the West Coast, and penetrated as far east as Michigan. Designed to set fire to the forests of the Pacific Northwest, and kill any Americans nearby, they only had one success. A single hapless American family pinicking nearby a fallen balloon went to examine the curiosity. It exploded killing most of them.

This technical film shows the devilish ingenuity of the most long ranged weapon of the war.

Reviewer: Jilly9 - - April 26, 2011
Subject: Declassified navy training film
Japan tried (and succeeded) to bomb the USA via balloon bombs during WWII.

This is an approx. 25 minute film that shows one of these balloon bombs in flight, with narration about size, etc

An animated sequence shows the flight path of these incendiary devices, and where they have landed in the CONUS.

Close-ups of the device show ballast, payload, etc.

An odd part of WWII history.

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